VISUAL AND MEDIA ARTS | SSK portfolio

"VISUAL & MEDIA ARTS (VMA) The Minor in Visual & Media Arts enables students to explore and engage diverse visual and media arts practices and to develop artistic, critical and conceptual competence in an interdisciplinary context

Students who want to develop specializations in a particular artistic medium
Students who are looking for ways to signal creative written and visual competence
Students who are interested in experimental, critical and reflexive thinking
Students who wish to supplement other areas of study with forms of creative practice and engagement."

As an IA major, I decided to minor in Visual & Media Arts as a way to narrow my focus but also refine my artistic skills. I have had the privilege to study and work with video art as way to communicate conceptual ideas but also informative ones. A lot of my courses in IA and VMA overlap or connect. It was only right that I brought knowledge from IA to VMA in order to produce my own original work.

VIDEO

Time & Space

A short video piece that explores the motion of time but also the manipulation of it through editing.

The Sov Club: The Red Series

A final video project to express my love and fascination with editorial fashion videos. This might be my most chaotic piece but it allowed me to explore the power of video and editing to present my own aesthetic and visuals without limitations.

Climate Refugees

This video is to inform the general public about the dangers of climate change and the greenhouse effect. In the western world, we hold a particular privilege of being able to ignore the immediate effects of global warming as we don't feel/see it as hard as other countries. In this video we discuss the politics of island nations such as Kiribati having their homes destroyed by high sea level rises. Most citizens are trying to seek asylum in other countries but are being denied access because they don't fit the definition of "refugees". But in this day in age a new term has been formed, climate refugees, whom are worthy of aid.

Khmer Confession

This video works within confession genre of video. Video is a great medium for many people to confess their secrets, struggles, and or to simply vent. In this piece I confess my challenge of being a Khmer American whose feeling a cultural gap in my identity of not being able to claim my culture in the way I want to because I feel so westernized and detached from my roots. But come to a resolution.

The Mind Game

This video is a documentation of my installation at UWB. I was fortunate enough to be one of the presenting students in the Open Studio Festival which allows student final work to be shown to visitors. This project was based in my idea of showing my audience the struggle I have with being optimistic but also pessimistic. It's my interpretation of an existential crisis to center my emotions which I typically don't in real life but I was able to do it through video.

EVENT PLANNING

SET DESIGN: Round Table Centering on Indigenous Voices.

I was a part of a set design team for an on-campus event for Indigenous Artists. I conceptualized the design with a team to make and bring wish-like trees into the venue to honor and center nature in the same manner native cultures do. This was about paying homage to the unceded land we live on that were wrongfully taken away from Native Tribes across the U.S. This piece was made with the intentions of being resourceful and budget friendly.

IMAGINE showcase

I know the basics of photoshop. I made a poster for the IMAGINE SHOWCASE for promotion and design purposes. This poster was meant to display a collage of vast array of performance art that goes on UWB campus. As a class, we decided to for the vintage aesthetic which is within trend right now. Typography by Prof. Anida Ali.

Morningside Academy Gala & Auction

I worked with a non-profit school, Morningside Academy, for students with learning disabilities. I was in charge of communication materials in relation to fundraising. I helped conceptualize, design, and organize their gala.

PHOTOGRAPHY

KHMER WOMEN: A Love Letter

I’d look through American magazines, flipping through pages of people with similar faces and beauty. I’ve come to realize diversity has always been slim in media. It’s a particular beauty standard that’s being represented and it’s not inclusive. I’ll come across a token POC and it’s not a gesture to diversity but a quota. Representation of minorities matter. We’re slowly seeing more of it and I wanted to contribute to it. I thought it was a great opportunity to represent a minority group close to me who deserve to be represented, Khmer (aka Cambodian) Women. On a personal level, Khmer stories are always surrounding oppression, abuse, and struggle but never beauty. I set up my mother, sister, aunt and cousin as models of a mock magazine editorial to make a statement that diversity is capable of being beautiful and stylized. But overall this was a chance for women in my family to be seen. This series is not about fashion or the props, but to center on Khmer Women. To make them feel confident and to show themselves outside of the work or domestic space. This is a tribute to them for raising me as I near the end of my college years. In terms of my artistic choices, it’s a subtle homage to corny (in a good way) 80/90’s style portraits I would see at many relatives’ house. You can see this through my choice of red/purple lighting, purposeful grain, props, and glow effect. To stick with the editorial style, I decided to do typography. I displayed their name and a love note from me to them. I kept consistency with the dramatic black backdrop but also the “one eye” motif. In each set, there’s a photo of a model with one eye inspired by the “all seeing eye – protector of humanity ” “eye of Horus – protection, power, good health” symbolism. These women are powerful to me and I want to show that.

IDENTITY in 4 photos

To portray my identity, my immediate response was to capture different aspects of my life that have shaped who I am today. I was loosely aiming for monumental/defining moments throughout my life span of beginning, middle, and now. I’m particularly sentimental when it comes to showing off where I come from because it has hugely impacted how I see and navigate the world.

The first photo, I wanted to capture the style of homes I grew up in. It’s a rather eerie and sad scene, but it perfectly shows off social class and how my family started out. It’s important to appreciate and remember the hard times. I definitely wanted a wide shot to capture all the dirt and grittiness of the building. It gives off a very abandoned and neglected feel which I was kind of going for. But I also wanted to highlight the red chair as symbolic for me throughout my series.

The second photo, my mother and sister are the main subjects as they are the two people who raised me. My mom and sister in general are very soft and caring. I thought it would be a cool approach to see them in a powerful stance/angle as they are the strong women I look up to.I really like the contrast between the red shirt and the blue sky. This was more about the angle than anything.

The third photo, Cambodian culture is just really beautiful, and I enjoy the performance aspect of it as I used to be a dancer. It has given me a sense of community and history. I really wanted to capture the crowd and the main dancers because it’s just a great moment of solidarity and how our culture still thrives in America.

The fourth photo, this one is more figurative than the others. I wanted to capture what is going on now, for me. As a creative, I’m starting to find my own lane as an art student and this red hall shows what I wish to achieve in terms of public art or at least this the scale of work I want to do in the future. I enjoy the minimal yet bold aesthetic and it has been a common theme throughout my work. I showed this photo to my friends and family and they thought this red hall was very much my art style. In all, I wanted to create a series that was dramatic in context but also in composition.